The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Image via CrunchBase

Yan-David Erlich grew up in Paris -- his father was an engineer with Schlumberger (SLB) who climbed to become its chief information officer -- but Yanda, as he is known, stayed in the U.S. and learned what it takes to lead and mentor start-ups here.

As he explained in a December 29th interview, Yanda believes that start-up CEOs need passion for the problem space, unquenchable optimism, and a willingness to hire smart people to build a winning team.

And in the role of Angel/Mentor, start-ups benefit most from a person who can add the skills they need to grow -- such as raising capital from the right people, managing people -- including hiring a co-founder; ranking, hiring, and firing workers; and managing conflicts, and building a product that appeals to an ever-growing customer base.

Yanda took an interesting route to the world of Silicon Valley start-ups. After earning a B.S. from Rice University in electrical engineering and computer science, he spent three years at Microsoft (MSFT) before earning his MBA at Stanford. From there, Eric Schmidt hired him into Google (GOOG) where he worked on digital video strategy and advertising.

In 2007, Yanda left Google and started Social.IM, a social network IM service, and Mogad, a social content recommendation site, with a partner who had artificial intelligence expertise. 18 months later, they sold the company to iSkoot that became part of Qualcomm (QCOM).

From there, Yanda became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Battery Ventures where he took four months to decide he wanted to start another company -- ChoiceVendor -- a service that helps start-ups find service providers. In September 2010, he sold it to LinkedIn (LNKD).

Yanda spent the next year or so working with start-ups as an Angel/Mentor. This role is an interesting blend of capital provider and advice giver. Yanda estimates that of the nine companies he works with in this role, he may have considered as many as 450.

Yanda picks start-ups that pass three tests:

Great entrepreneurs. Yanda has concluded that a great entrepreneur combines a passion for the "space" -- a term that denotes the nature of the problem the start-up is trying to solve and the possible products/services that will solve it -- and a deep-seated unwillingness to quit. Of the two, that ability to find cracks in seemingly insurmountable obstacles is the more important of the two. But without a passion for the space, the determination is less likely to kick in when needed.

Desire and ability to help team. Yanda likes to work with start-ups peopled with good listeners who are working on a problem that interests him. But he will pass on the opportunity if he does not think they need his skills -- particularly the ones in capital raising, managing people, and developing the product.

Potentially billion dollar company. While Yanda wants to invest in a company that will reach $1 billion in revenues, he is skeptical of ubiquitous hockey-stick-shaped growth predictions. In his words, he "lends less credence in the early stages to the ability to predict billion dollar opportunities since many start-ups that became huge started as something less recognizably big. As such, [he] tends to focus on team/passion/drive first and a gut feel for the space at the expense of obvious market sizing."

Yanda is applying all these lessons to his third start-up -- Happiness Engines. Founded in October 2011, it uses smart-phone data to help people minimize lower-level worries. Examples include -- analyzing vehicle traffic data to tell someone when they have to leave to get to their next appointment or giving a advance notice of family, friend, and colleague birthdays so the user can buy gifts in time.

If Yanda's past is any prologue, odds are good that he'll build Happiness Engines into a considerable company. Whether he takes it public or sells it to a bigger company remains to be seen.

But his advice to aspiring start-up CEOs or Angels/Mentors is already quite valuable.